Which Is The Best Samsung Smartphone To Buy Right now: S9, S8 or A8+?

Samsung phones are not competing with the likes of Apple and Google as much as they are competing amongst themselves. Which is the best Samsung phone in the market right now?

The top of the line flagships, Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are the most feature-rich phones right now with highlights like Super-slow Mo and Visual Bixby.

But at the same time, they are too pricey for the little upgrades they offer over Galaxy S8 and S8+. Both of which are nearly as great as their successors with no monumental design changes.

There’s also Galaxy A8+ in the league which is toned down version of Galaxy S9 with the beautiful 18.5:9 infinity display (as Samsung calls it) with good hardware optimization and half the price.

So, if you have a thing for Samsung phones, depending upon your spending capacity, you might want to consider all the three options. Let’s take a look at the best Samsung phone options.

Samsung Galaxy S9

Credit: Samsung NewsRoom

Highlights

Innovative Camera: Dual Aperture in a single Camera

Improved Unlocking: Iris Scanner and Face recognition work together.

Super Slow Mo: 960 frames per second, monopoly feature (for now).

Visual Bixby can live-process photos.

Samsung has taken galaxy S8 and refined it to make a better functioning phone that boasts of extravagant features like AR emojis and smart image-processing to fight back the iPhone X hype.

Not a stand-alone marvel in itself, the smartphone is just a subtle yet overpriced upgrade of the similar looking Galaxy S8, which was clearly a step forward from Galaxy S7 when it let go of the physical home button.

Credit: Samsung NewsRoom

But being a flagship, it does give you mesmerizing performance and a bunch of cool gimmicks. Most importantly, a great camera with Dual Aperture of f/1.5 and f/2.4. Two different focal lengths promise amazing low light photography and beautiful day shots all without the need for a dual camera setup.

The Super-slow Mo is a fun photography tool that YouTubers and bloggers would love to get their hands on. The general user will use it maybe once a month to kill boredom but that’s about it.

Key Improvements in Galaxy S9 over Galaxy S8

Unlocking

S8 was particularly notorious for its fingerprint sensor placement that has been taken care of nicely in Galaxy S9. The Iris Scanner also had issues in S8 where it didn’t recognize the user half the time but S9 resolves that with full face scan coupled with Iris Scan so that you get through the most number of times.

Credit: Samsung NewsRoom

Camera

The newer model does offer a renovated camera as discussed earlier. The dual aperture is a completely new thing for smartphone cameras and takes Samsung’s much acclaimed low light photography one step forward. Also, Super Slow Mo is a smartphone-first feature, leave alone S8.

AR Emoji

S9 has a twisted version of Apple’s Animoji that goes one step ahead and turns your face into an AR emoji. You can briefly customize the generated AR version of yourself and share it in text messages. If you’re a fan, you have it right there in S9.

Credit: Samsung NewsRoom

Why people would want to buy Galaxy S8 over S9

Now that Galaxy S8 has a successor, it’s price point is going to fall. Galaxy S8 is available for approximately 690 USD (44.9k INR) and shall easily cut down to below 600 USD (38.9k INR) as S9 is made available on more shopping sites.

Credit: Samsung NewsRoom

Galaxy S9 is currently priced around 890 USD (57.9k INR) in India which is quite a lot if you consider the number of new things you’re getting in S9.

Samsung Galaxy S8

Fundamentally, both the flagships share the same form factor and the same display, so, choosing the older one for the compromise of a little fine tuning would be a wise decision. At least, we expect people to go for Galaxy S8 and S8+ now.

Moreover, S8 and S9 would match up to each other in terms of Apps they can run, how fast the UI is and how long the batteries can last, the things that matter the most in a phone.

Enter – Galaxy A8+

Credit: Samsung NewsRoom

Then we also have the recently announced Galaxy A8+ that promises flagship-esque features for an even lower price range. These features are:

6.0 inch and 18.5:9 aspect ratio display (with thicker bezels)

Dual front camera 16MP + 8MP

16MP autofocus rear camera

6 GB RAM

3500 mAh battery

If you carefully notice, all these specs are in close resemblance to S9. Galaxy A8+ is not a flagship in itself but it sure offers an exciting deal for people who wish to spend around 450 – 500 USD (29k – 35k INR) and experience the latest features offered by the latest flagships.

Galaxy A8+ packs a punch with its dual front cameras that have returned some amazing portrait photos in tests. The “bokeh”, “background-blur” or whatever you call it, works really well on the A8+, making it a great choice for selfie enthusiasts.

Credit: Samsung NewsRoom

With 6GB of RAM and Exynos 7885 Octa-core processor chipset, the daily-day performance of the smartphone is well over the mark. The rear camera and fingerprint sensor look identical to Galaxy S9, which means no unlocking problems either.

I am a techie who learned to write! With a Computer Science Degree and a lot of experience in messing around with technology, I bring real content to the readers of Ionizer.
I happen to be the founding members of the venture, with all-around participation in editorial and research activities.
Apart from the nerd-talk, I write poetry and love watching movies.